


The Coldest Color

by KissedByNightshade



Category: Bleach
Genre: Canon Compliant Through 684, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Major Character Undeath, Mostly Gen, Platonic Relationships, Self-Acceptance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2016-12-03
Packaged: 2018-09-06 04:20:28
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8734657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KissedByNightshade/pseuds/KissedByNightshade
Summary: Being dead, as it turns out, isn't easier after all.
Kira Izuru, after the war.





	

**Author's Note:**

> WARNINGS: suicide ideation; past abuse reference; body horror; dissociation; food and alcohol; arguably disordered eating; medical mistreatment reference
> 
> There's just a lot of heavy content in here. Good thing I'm not one for wangst, or else we'd be here all day.

 

 

 

This place is cold. He can’t feel it, but the chill in the colors more than makes up for it — the stark whiteness of the walls, almost sanitary in their bleary neutrality. Almost blinding. They glow the slightest bit blue under the lamps, which burn a hot indigo if you stare at them long enough.

Akon’s face looms over him and blots out the indigo momentarily — a contrast to the hue of the walls, though not by much. He looks pale and sickly, which quite frankly seems a lot more fitting for the Twelfth Division than the metal beams and plaster that hold the building together. A color that makes Izuru want to reach out and pull flesh from bone.

He can only imagine that the steel clamps keeping him still must be quite cold as well — cold and gunmetal silver, he guesses, though he can’t move his head any which way to check. Maybe that's for the better, though, since he doesn't really want to look at anything at all in here.

"Keep your eyes on the pen.”

And he does. His eyes follow the ballpoint as Akon moves it in an x shape, then in a circle.

Rather than offering approval or, indeed, giving him any sort of acknowledgement whatsoever, the third seat simply moves the pen back to his clipboard and makes a note. Then he picks up a flashlight and shines it first in one eye, then the other, thirty seconds apiece.

"Pupils still dilating slowly," Akon murmurs as he writes this down as well.

Izuru waits, limbs and face perfectly still, knowing what happens next. Every week, the same sequence of tests, followed by some injections to his neck and some adjustments to his prosthetic. Izuru has very little room left to wonder about the purpose of the tests, or the contents of the injections. Are they keeping him moving and thinking? Are they meant to somehow improve his condition? He doesn't bother to ask, because he doesn't care. If he did, maybe he'd stop showing up to his appointments just to find out.

But even if he doesn't care, he still _wonders_. Just like he wonders about the faces that disappeared after the war, their blood and bones left to moulder under the sun at the same time that he'd been dragged back here — wonders whether it’s their essence that sustains him. Just like he knows that he died alongside them, and that the act of keeping him moving and talking and fighting was a wartime necessity — maintenance of a weapon, nothing more sentimental than that.

He knows that next, Akon will press a modified stethoscope into the folds of his shihakusho and seek out the beating of a regrown heart. And he knows that Akon will find nothing.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Shuuhei is waiting for him outside. Considering the brightness of the orange-streaked August sky, just brushing its lips with the beginning of sunset, Izuru thinks that he looks remarkably glum. With his biceps folded over his chest and his feet planted squarely under his shoulders, Shuuhei almost resembles his captain, right down to the miserable glare on his face as he examines the Twelfth Division entrance.

Between himself, Muguruma-taicho, and Matsumoto, Izuru guesses that Shuuhei has seen enough of Twelfth Division to earn the right to be miserable. Still, he can't find it in him to feel _too_ sorry.

"Any change?" he asks immediately, and Izuru shrugs. Akon had griped recently that Kurotsuchi-taicho has been working tirelessly on a 'project', leaving him to do most of the _rehabilitation_ (and how _much_ there was to do!). Izuru had never heard better news in his life.

Izuru begins walking. His shihakusho billows at the sleeve, air catching in the moon-shaped pocket under his arm. Even with the flesh regrown and pinched-pink by oxygen, his clothes fit wrong, as if they’d been grown back too, a size too large. He knows what Akon will say — 'start doing the exercises I gave you and maybe it’ll get better’ — but it doesn’t bother him quite enough for that.

He hears Shuuhei's feet crunch against gravel as he tries to catch up, but he doesn't stop or slow down.

"Kira," he says, and now Izuru remembers what it's like to feel irritation. He doesn't feel irritated, though, because he's dead; the feeling sinks lumpen into his features and stays skin-deep. "Kira, stop this."

"Stop what?" he says, even though he isn't really Kira Izuru at all; it's just a name, and he's just a shinigami. "I'm not doing anything."

Shuuhei uses the time to catch up to Izuru; he grabs him by the prosthetic wrist first, then grunts and drops it as though it had scalded him. Clearly the other hand isn't any better, though, based on that grimace; Izuru wonders if his flesh is as cold as those steel clamps in the lab must have been. "Quit shutting everyone out. Quit pretending like you don't care."

Izuru thinks that Shuuhei looks even more exhausted than he did before the war, which is saying something. Shuuhei always looks in need of a shot of espresso, rum, or both. He almost thinks to ask whether he's been sleeping enough, but that thought turns to ashes in the back of his throat.

"I'm not doing anything," he repeats, and he decides it would be cruel to correct Shuuhei's use of his name. That, after all, would imply that he cares.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He mostly spends his nights in the Third Division offices now. It's better that way, he tells himself; Renji doesn't need to wake up to a corpse, and he doesn't need to waste the entire night trying to think of ways to kill himself. So instead, he makes himself busy.

Certainly there’s plenty for him to do. Otoribashi-taicho isn’t keeping up with his paperwork, for obvious reasons; and until there are enough candidates to replace his seated officers, Izuru doesn’t plan on choosing new ones. It wouldn’t be _right_ , he’d told his Captain, who didn’t really have the energy to argue, and probably wouldn’t have done so anyway. Rose almost always agrees with him.

(He had expected to _hear_ them or something, when Kurotsuchi first explained what he’d done. As if maybe he’d have a chance to apologize or something, for taking what had belonged to them, or for not being able to join them just yet. He never even got to see them buried.)

(He hasn't visited it yet — the mass grave where many of his men ended up. Matsumoto described it for him, after she went to take a look, and said that it seemed unfinished. That it needed a memorial of some kind on top. Izuru supposed that she would know; she does, after all, have quite a bit of experience with graves.)

Each day he leaves a large stack of completed paperwork on Rose’s desk, and next to it he leaves a thin pile of work that requires a Captain’s signature. Some days the stacks from the previous day are still laying there when he brings his work. It doesn’t bother him; he merely adds to each. He doesn’t make excuses when the runners each day come away with nothing. And he doesn’t bother Rose.

That doesn’t stop Rose from bothering him, of course, and since Rose is so incorrigible, he gets away with more than most. He gets away with more than Izuru lets practically anyone else get away with. In exchange, Izuru can be cruel. He can be disgusting. He can be hurtful.

He hates the way Rose looks more deathly than he does, in some ways — his own flesh is filling out, even though there’s still no heartbeat, and so slowly the puckered look of purple blossoms across mottled limbs is fading. He refuses to look in the mirror now, for fear of seeing something there that contradicts the fact that he’s not Izuru, that Izuru is dead and he is just a corpse. Just a shinigami.

“Izuru,” Rose says, over and over, and his skeleton fingers like wilted plum branches drag through Izuru’s unkept hair. “Izuru."

“I’m not Izuru,” he repeats. “I’m not Izuru."

Rose moves away, and Izuru is glad; he doesn’t want to see the flesh sunken around Rose’s eye sockets, the purplish tinge to his skin. With Rose’s back to him, he doesn’t have to watch the eyelids flicker like an old man, nor does he have to watch his mouth crinkle up into a sad, forgiving smile. _You don’t know any better, dear Izuru. You’re just hurting. You just have to get better._

“Look, Izuru, come look at the sunrise.” And he can’t help but turn and look, and he hates himself for it — no one sleeps here, no one except the living. The pair of them, they’re just ghosts, lingering where they don’t belong.

“I’m not Izuru,” he says yet again, and it perturbs him how his voice rises and cracks. Not from anger, but more like he’s about to cry, as though crying is something he does. (Can his body even create tears? That’s another one for the Twelfth Division.)

For once, mercifully, Rose doesn’t try and correct him. He just keeps staring at the sunrise, a sunrise neither of them deserve to see. And after a while, Izuru abandons the fixed point on the wall and also goes to the window. The sunrise is satin blue and more vibrant than the color of the persimmons just beginning to grow. For a split second Izuru considers writing that into a haiku, before he remembers that he’s just a shinigami, one who writes nothing at all.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He tries, very hard, not to think about the way Matsumoto had looked at him, the first time she’d seen him dead.

She’s one of the few who bothers, anymore. Most of Izuru’s old friends gave up quickly, trying to find him in this corpse of a body. Even with the flesh filled in around his ribs and his chest and his cheeks, he still looks dead to them, or at least dead enough to remind them. His lips shrunken and cracked. His eyes sunken, sullen; as unfocused and glassy as marbles.

He knows he’s still cold from the way most people pull away from even the slightest brush of a hand.

Rangiku doesn’t pull away. She tugs his arm and steers him to a bathtub brimming with steaming, sweet-smelling water. She runs her fingers (also ruddy with leftover bruises, the trademark of her own time spent undead) through sodden hair and rubs his limbs as if that will make them bleed and breathe again. She cuts his hair when it gets too long and tells him it’s a good sign, the growth, that it means that he’s living again, that his hair wouldn’t grow if he was dead.

And he lets her. He lets her, because even the stranger in his body understands that she needs this. That it would hurt worse to push her away than it does to let her tell herself a lie, to tell herself a lie and hold him.

(She held him that time too. Pulled him to her chest and killed the words on his lips, the ones saying that _he wasn’t himself,_ that _Kira Izuru is dead._ She’d pulled him to her chest and cried and cried into his blood-streaked hair, and she had smiled.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“Kira-kun, it’s not good that you’re not sleeping."

Momo has been growing her hair out. It’s longer than his now, long enough to tie back into a short little ponytail. He can distract himself from her conversation by watching the end of it jump against the upper laces of her apron, watch the neat bow peek out from behind.

The apron, checkered pink and white, matches her oven mitts, which have little cherries emblazoned on the hem. Izuru wonders whether she bought them of her own accord, or if they were a gift. Who they were a gift from. The occasion. He then wonders, very briefly, whether Rangiku would categorize that particular line of thought as empathy, and whether empathy means he is recovering.

A ridiculous notion, swiftly rejected.

The tray of cookies is steaming as Momo pulls it from the oven, their scent wafting enticingly throughout the kitchen. He is briefly reminded that Kira Izuru had a sweet tooth, and he wonders if he still does. “Have you asked Akon-san if he can– whoops!”

Suddenly they are airborne, three of the dozen cookies coming loose as the tray rattles toward the floor. He’s out of his seat at the kitchen table before it even hits the ground, out of his seat and across the room — just in time to clutch at the corner of the pan with his bare right hand.

It isn’t until he sets the pan (nine cookies still safely attached) on the counter that he notices Momo’s face. “Kira-kun, are you okay?!” Her hands are pressed to her mouth, tips of her feet pointed inward. She is staring at him, her wide brown eyes darting between his own neutral expression and his right hand, now slack at his side.

He looks at the offending limb, which currently looks like the most normal part of his body. The synthetic flesh that covers it, now thoughtfully pigmented to match the opposite hand, is meant for dirty work — it’s meant for fighting; built to withstand anything from claws to explosives. Under the duress of a hot pan, it looks and feels just like it had after Akon slid the shoulder joint into the steel socket and sutured the edges of the skin to an imperceptible seam.

That is to say, he feels nothing at all.

“Thank you, Hinamori-kun,” he says quietly, picking up the three cookies from her linoleum in the same hand. She now looks less horrified and more uneasy by the evidence of his existence. He turns toward the doorway. “I’ll see what I can do to sleep better."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

The difficulty with sleep is that the harder you try to fall asleep, the more elusive it becomes. The first time he tries, the hours inch by, broken only by small noises in the pipes. It’s been over half a year since he counted the flaws in the rafters in his lieutenant’s quarters, a ritual that lasted him decades prior. His futon smells slightly musty, and he'd expected a cloud of cobwebs to exude from it when he shook out the sheets and crawled onto it.

The second time is harder. Knowing that he will crawl into that dark place and spend hours, almost certainly, hoping for sleep, not for himself but for Momo’s sake, and for the sakes of Rangiku, Renji, Hisagi. People who remember Kira Izuru and want him back, not this empty shell. People who matter.

The night is long, and his thoughts pass back into the deep dark. Dying shouldn’t be so hard, he decides; it’s not fair that he has to keep existing like this. But so too he must, because the effort of removing himself is too much. The price is too high.

Izuru would not want Rangiku to cry for him, at least.

The third time, he convinces himself that maybe it doesn’t matter. He’ll continue to exist, with or without sleep, almost certainly indefinitely. It’s not restlessness that compels him to toss on the mattress, not restlessness at all. It doesn’t matter to him if he falls asleep or not. Asleep, awake. Just brushing below the surface, never quite alive.

The fourth time, he thinks he feels something akin to exhaustion.

The days pass slowly in the meantime, almost slower than the nights. Interviews begin at last, to replace the seated officers lost in the invasion. He takes notes while Rose asks the questions, keeping track of what they claimed as their sentiments and abilities. Later, he flips through the sheafs of paper, pages upon pages of his pointed handwriting, and realizes he can’t remember a single interview. Nor can he decipher the meaning behind the interviews in the first place. All the candidates seem the same, no variation — just living shells, almost as hollow as he is.

By the time he tries for the tenth or eleventh time to fall asleep, he’s almost given up hope that it’s possible. Perhaps, at this point, he’s more like a robot, a computer designed to fill the space left by someone more worthy. Perhaps that’s why Kira Izuru died; perhaps Mayuri killed him.

Still, he carries out his ritual and spends the hours staring at the faded wood of the rafters and taps his finger in time to the dripping of the pipes in the walls and–

–and wakes up.

He only knows that time has passed by the dim grey of dawn reflected off his walls. He rolls stiffly off the pallet and trudges to the window; no birds, this late in the season, just dull orange leaves slowly floating across the yard.

A fluke, he decides, and pulls on a shihakusho, several days old but smelling only of autumn air — he hasn’t sweated since the day he died — and steps out of his quarters. And he thinks that, if he tries very hard, he can almost feel late October’s chill. That might only be the sensation of the hairs on his arm bristling, though.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

He doesn’t realize until he’s at the doorstep that he’s been avoiding Renji. Not consciously, really, just an old habit that he picked up some time between his promotion to lieutenant and the first war. It’s easy to fall back into old habits when you aren’t thinking, when you have no reason to change them.

He recalls new habits as well: the way he would pull open the door, as he does now, without overture or announcement. Slipping off his shoes, dusting off his shihakusho — as if that would make him any more presentable. He remembers days when Renji would beat him home, only to fall asleep on the couch before he could even get there. Plenty of other days when he’d spend hours reading before Renji peeked around the doorframe, cartons of take-out in hand.

The still air of the front hallway surprises him more than anything else — has Renji also been staying at his quarters in Sixth Division? But no, there’s a second pair of shoes by the door, despite the dust motes floating in the late afternoon sunlight. So he is, in fact, not alone.

He shuts the front door behind him, ignoring the staleness that he breathes, and slides open the screen into the living room. He almost backs out when he sees the shock of red hair against the neutral tones of the room; but it’s too late. He’s here, and there’s no backing out now, not without betraying whatever humanity he has left.

Renji, sprawled across the cushions of the couch they picked out together all those months ago, sits up more slowly and quickly than Izuru can bear. He wasn’t sure what to expect when he decided to come here — he had imagined Renji’s eyes bright with anger and betrayal; or, perhaps, alive with relief, only to be crushed when he learns that Izuru is still dead, and this is still just a charade. He wondered whether he was coming here to cull something unsustainable. He wondered if, after everything, he would be saying goodbye today.

He didn’t expect to see eyes bruised with exhaustion, a face almost as bloodless as his own. He never expected to see his own pain reflected on Renji’s face.

_If the same thing happened to him as happened to you, where would you be left? Wouldn’t you want Renji’s happiness, too?_

He realizes that he’s standing frozen, hands pressed flat against the doorframe. They stare at each other in startled silence for several long seconds. Then: “Is it alright if… can I stay here tonight?”

If anything, this startles Renji more than his mere appearance did, but he hides it well to an outsider’s eyes. Izuru can only tell by the way his eyes soften at the corners, creases deepening from shock to sadness. “Of course y’ can. This is your home, too.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It gets harder before it gets easier. Izuru tacitly agrees not to remind Renji that he’s a corpse, and in turn Renji does his best not to show his hurt when he realizes it yet again for himself. He doesn’t mention the uneaten food, abandoned in favor of nutrient drinks prescribed by Akon and his hoard of scientists. He remembers to let the tap run a bit after Izuru finishes showering, so that the same water in which he had bathed won’t scald.

Skin still inflamed by the heat of the water, Izuru supposes that it’s a game of pretend — they’re playing house, acting as though things can go back to normal, that Izuru is still alive and his body is warm with blood and not water ghosted over his skin. That’s okay, though; it’s almost pleasant to wake up, soaked in sunlight, and wonder if he is cold to the touch, or if Renji’s body heat has sponged into the places where they were pressed together.

The waking up — that’s the strangest thing, now.  The hours in which he sleep grow longer; at first he could only stay asleep for two or three hours, but as the days and weeks pass, he finds himself unconscious for six, seven, even eight hours at a stretch. Still, he never dreams, or if he does then he doesn’t remember.

Perhaps that is for the best, since he can’t imagine what sorts of dreams would be pleasant enough for him to desire.

He knows he must breathe when he sleeps, else his body could not function; even without a heartbeat, Akon tells him time and again that his brain, at least, needs oxygen. He guesses that must help Renji, at least, as his chest rises and falls, even in slumber, breaking up the stillness and the silence.

Every day, they wake up and go to work, and every day they return home. A few times Izuru arrives at home before Renji; most days he arrives late, late into the evening, with the sun having set hours before. And each time he arrives, kicking off his shoes late after dark, he looks on Renji’s tired, worn-down expression and wonders if all that worry is because of him.

No, he knows it is. And no matter how many times he says hello, or asks what Renji is eating for dinner, or apologizes for not calling ahead, he knows that it isn’t enough. It still hurts, and it isn’t enough, and even feeling nothing he can tell. Even feeling nothing it still hurts. It hurts, and he knows there is something missing.

“We should talk,” Renji says one day over a one-sided meal. Izuru watches him take careful, mindful bites, self-conscious under Izuru’s eyes. “We should talk about us.”

Izuru can tell, from the measured way he speaks and the uncharacteristic caution on his face, that he’s thought about this for a while, that he’s been waiting for the right moment. And if the right moment is the middle of dinner, then perhaps the feeling of dread that worries the pit of his stomach (not that he can feel it) is unwarranted. It sits there nonetheless.

“What did you want to talk about?” he replies in an equally cautious voice.

“Kira.” Even the name makes him sit upright. He wants to say that it doesn’t belong to him, but… that’s not true. It’s his name, whether it belongs to him or not. His name and his life and his cold, frigid body — inherited, the lot of it. “I know that you’ve been trying not to… not to let me see how bad it is, but… I need to know, okay. You’ve gotta talk to me. I’m your _boyfriend_.” Renji’s eyebrows are crinkled, but his gaze is clear, and determined. “This isn’t going to work unless you let it. Let me in. Let me help.”

Izuru hears more than Renji in those words. He hears Rangiku’s measured voice, advising care in spite of frustration. Momo’s worry and sadness, tinged with optimism. He can practically envision Shuuhei as well — late nights spent in frustrated discussion, wondering, waiting. All centered around him.

How can he answer for what he’s done to them?

Izuru realizes that his fist is clenched beneath the edge of the table, the only sign of his sudden rush of guilt. He takes a deep breath. Loosens his fingers around his palm. “Are you sure? It may be painful for you. You won’t like what I have to share.”

Something about the seriousness in Renji’s gaze makes him look very young. Like when they were in Shin’o, and Renji would very occasionally make an honest remark about his feelings, only to profusely deny them even moments later. But he’s not denying anything now, just nodding. A half-smile. “Yeah, but… it hurts anyway, doesn’t it? I have to share it with you; it wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t.”

Izuru, of course, has his own thoughts on the fairness of life in general. There’s nothing more unfair in his mind than the thought of Renji suffering for him. But he knows Renji doesn’t see it that way, probably doesn’t want him to suffer either, wants to do what he can, even without understanding…

“Alright,” he says, standing up. “I’ll let you in.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

There comes the day when he locks his office door, sits cross-legged in front of his window, and places his zanpakuto across his lap, and stares into nothing.

Perhaps it could be chalked up to idle curiosity, this whole endeavor. Don’t get him wrong — he can still use the zanpakuto, its abilities and shikai intact, the spirit not having abandoned the sword when its owner did. But still; he has to wonder.

There is only one zanpakuto to each shinigami; and perhaps more importantly, there is only one shinigami to each zanpakuto.

He crashes through the veil of life and death and lands crouching, the black soil of Kira Izuru’s inner world sticking to his right knee and his left palm as he arrives.

The air still smells just as charred as it did the last time he was here: like ashes and smoke; like a forest on fire. In a way, it’s a clean smell, devoid of the toxins and the sickly scent of flesh that usually accompanies the trees and leaves and plant matter that fuel such a massive blaze. Only one body burned that day.

The rest of the forest, though intact, looms darker than ever; leaves that once shown green and cast emerald sunbeams across the floor now are dark as night itself, and the sky that peeks through the slight gaps in the foliage looks stormy. Even the trunks seem threatening to him, and for the first time he is afraid; does the forest consider him a trespasser? If so, what will it do? (Moreover, why should he be afraid of the consequences of his actions?)

At the very least, he can feel the presence at his back, at the corners of his eyes, reminding him that he is not alone.

“Rikuu?” He hadn’t meant to say the name until it came out of his mouth. “Taketsuna-san? Katakura-san?”

His voice echoes through the trees, repeating over and over again. There is no response.

He walks as far as the edge of the trees, and stares across the piles of ashes, the place where the fire blazed for the days before his death. The wind, imperceptible within the depths of the forest, now tugs at his hair and clothes, which billow around him. He’s really alone, isn’t he? He’s himself, and he’s alone. Both of those things must be true, or else he wouldn’t be able to stand here now, wouldn’t be able to consider the leftover pieces of his own life.

“You’re quite foolish, you must realize,” whispers the voice, the one who will not show its face.

Izuru doesn’t bother to turn. “Tell me, Wabisuke. Have you ever lied to me?”

“I can’t lie, Kira-sama. You know this.” The voice sounds amused; though, Izuru can never tell. The spirit won’t show its face and speak to him in the same encounter. “I know that you’ve been wasting your own time, with this.”

“This…?” Izuru turns toward the forest, mouth dry, but sees nothing. As usual. “What do you mean?”

“Alive, dead, yourself, not yourself — what does it matter? You’re still you.” The wind blusters against him, making him raise an arm to shield his eyes. “You’re still yourself.”

He knows before it happens, but he still tries to resist — “Wait!” — yet, it’s too late. He still sprawls onto the forest floor, suddenly too remorseful to move, suddenly too exhausted.

At some point the clouds overhead become his office ceiling once more, a transition as seamless as the growth of grass. And Izuru answers his own question, because at the corners of his eyes, tears begin to form and drip down his temples to dampen his hair and pool on the floor.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

If eyes are like stars, then walking through the Seireitei feels like drifting through the galaxy. Every passing face seems to follow him — each shinigami, each noble he brushes shoulders with on his stroll seems to fade into grey, their expressions blank, their eyes emotionless. In spite of the sun high overhead, taking the time to consider the passerby chills Izuru to the bone.

He’s managed to skirt every single lieutenants’ meeting since the war, justifying his absence with the excuse that, seeing as Kira Izuru is dead, he cannot attend meetings. And since his squad has no upper seated officers as of yet, there’s no one but Rose to fill in — Rose, who can barely fulfill his own functions at the moment, who has also been skipping inter-Division meetings. So, in effect, the Third Division’s information about new policies has come solely from paperwork, hell butterfly, and word of mouth.

According to Matsumoto, he isn’t the only one who’s been finding excuses. Eleventh Division’s Captain has yet to offer a name in place of its former lieutenant, though she says it’s obvious who will be filling that particular opening. Even though Akon supposedly has the appointment from Captain Kurotsuchi, he has yet to attend any meetings. Mashiro of Ninth Division is flakey in her attendance at best, claiming that Shuuhei’s presence means that she can devote herself to other activities. Additionally, conflicting duties mean that Isane, Iba, and Rukia, who are now Acting Captains, have empty seats fairly often, and no appointments at all have been made in Eighth Division, which currently lacks leadership entirely.

Of course, this is all hearsay — Rangiku has skipped plenty of meetings herself while recovering from her own undeath experience of the war. Izuru has no doubt that she swindled most of this gossip from Shuuhei, who has no excuse for not being present every week.

Either way, Izuru can only imagine the dire atmosphere of the room, with Ise Nanao and Okikiba Genshiro trying to cover their entire agenda in the course of an hour, with anywhere from three to eight empty seats only serving as a grim reminder of the circumstances.

The meeting has already started by the time he gets there, Nanao halfway through delivering her weekly report on the financial state of affairs throughout the Divisions. Izuru would’ve figured that she would cut her own path with regard to agenda order, but he supposes that Sasakibe had his reasons for starting with the budget, and that Nanao found them solid enough to carry over.

Predictably, there are four empty seats apart from his own, and predictably every eye in the room turns to him as he opens the door. ‘Surprise’ would be the wrong word — granted, most of the room’s inhabitants are far too poised to show open shock. But he reads it nonetheless; he knows that Shuuhei’s eyes widening is a distinct break from his usual composure, that Momo, though prone to outbursts at even the slightest cause, can usually keep herself from outright tearing up, as she does now.

He knows Renji left early this morning, before Izuru was even awake, and that seeing him now could easily be unpleasant, a reminder of all the things they’d lost. Yet Renji, alone out of the group, manages a lopsided grin. _Welcome back_.

“Sorry I’m late,” Izuru finally says, not bothering to mention his absence, not even bothering to mention the paperwork he was supposed to bring but didn’t — no one else seems bothered about it. He crosses the room in utter silence and drags out his chair, letting the wood scrape against the ground with an earsplitting screech. He can tell that Omaeda is just _itching_ to inch away from him, and he almost smiles.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

No matter how many times he comes here, there’s always a sense of claustrophobia in this particular restaurant — as though there aren’t enough tables for all the customers, not enough stools at the half-empty bar. In the past he has wondered why he and the other lieutenants wind up here so frequently; now he just wonders why it seems emptier than usual. Half a year really is a long time, paradoxically moreso for those destined to immortality. Or so he assumes.

Shuuhei requests a private room, as always, and as a lieutenant he is granted it as always. The pair of them have always attracted plenty of stares, but as the hostess takes them back to an alcove apart from the main area of the restaurant, Izuru feels as though there are more eyes crawling over him than usual. Whispers, too, though he can’t tell about what.

One would think that news of their demise would spread well enough over the months _without_ their presence as a living contradiction.

Er, undead contradiction?

Anyway.

Izuru has to admit, the ditchwater this bar has the gall to call sake smells a lot less appealing now than it ever did when he was younger. It’s as though the stench strikes his nostrils and his body revolts, preemptively alerting him that this will give him no sustenance, that it is pure poison. So he obliges, and he leaves the whole jug of it to Shuuhei, who gladly accepts his fill.

On the other hand, he has a sensation akin to hunger in his stomach as the dumplings that Shuuhei ordered are laid out between them, the low table spartan with such slim fare as this. Well, why would there be a reason otherwise? Izuru hasn’t bothered with solid food in months.

He picks up a pair of chopsticks and retrieves a single dumpling. Across the table, Shuuhei stops sipping his sake to watch as Izuru stares at it, then shoves the entire thing into his mouth. One bite, no hesitation. He struggles for a moment to chew the dumpling, then finally manages to gulp down enough of it to become manageable. At the end, he washes it down his throat with a mouthful of water, coughing slightly.

Shuuhei finally asks, concern mingling with wry amusement on his lips, “You having a little trouble there?”

Izuru nearly reaches for another before he takes a moment to evaluate. Though he still can’t quite feel the sensation of food entering his stomach, there’s _something_ there: a feeling of warmth, almost, as though his body is acknowledging the food’s presence. It makes a strange, choked sound, akin to gurgling.

“Maybe,” he says, reaching out with his chopsticks. “I want some more of these, I think.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Paperwork moves more swiftly now, paradoxically. The reports and official requests flow up the chain of command like a river, each stopping at the appropriate officer and then getting whisked away, all the proper seals, stamps, and signatures affixed to its surface. Even with Izuru spending less time in the office (his days spent chasing down Rose, his nights curled sound asleep in a bed that almost smells familiar again) the new seated officers more than adequately fulfill their duties.

Izuru is a fair lieutenant, he thinks; it’s fair to give them a chance and to evaluate them according to their own growth, rather than the abilities of their predecessors. It’s only fair to criticize them, let them know he cares about their progress. It’s fairness that causes him to watch them like a hawk as they train together, complete paperwork together, go out after work together. Like a proper team, not just an ensemble of replacements.

(Does it matter that Rikuu had a very specific method for sorting papers, while his replacement prefers a cluttered workspace and even more cluttered stack of papers? Does it count for anything that the new fifth seat has yet to display Gori’s knack for leading drills in the training yard? Is it important at all that Asuka’s replacement prefers not to criticize the establishment, instead meekly agreeing with whatever comes out of a superior’s mouth?)

(Rose says it does, when Izuru questions as much. Izuru can’t quite feel warmth, not yet, but he can tell that it’s in Rose’s hands and cheeks by the pink blood vessels in the flesh, by the way he moves and breathes like a person again. “Not that it changes how we look at the new officers, of course,” he adds quickly. “But we can still mourn. Oh, yes. We can mourn.”)

Izuru is nothing if not fair, the only exception being perhaps toward himself — so he writes three-month evaluations and stares at them, stares at the words that sound like his own in the calligraphy that looks like his own. He reads them aloud twice before submitting them to Rose, and he watches Rose stamp, sign, and seal them.

He remembers, mere years in the past, forging those very Captain’s signatures. He purses his lips and says nothing.

Later, as he tentatively picks strips of asparagus out of the carton of takeout, he watches Renji watch him and flattens his eyebrows together. “Has Sixth Division recovered from the battles?” he asks, picking out a bite of rice to swallow down as well.

Renji’s expression, as they stare at each other, is very strange — not something Izuru can recognize. “We didn’t have many casualties,” he divulges. “We’ve been getting by pretty well.”

Izuru knows what he’s thinking, or he thinks he does; it makes sense. The Third Division didn’t just _have_ casualties; the Third Division _was_ a casualty. He nods. Can you win a war when so many have died? Can you win when you were a casualty? Perhaps, Izuru thinks, a war cannot be won at all.

Or perhaps a war is won through survival, and survival alone.

He washes the dishes and then goes to bed, curling up on Renji’s chest. And when he wakes up, he thinks he almost remembers a dream somewhere amongst the miasma.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

It feels as though they’re walking to the edge of the world, for all the time it takes to reach their destination. Izuru can’t feel winter’s chill set in around him — or can he? Sometimes he wonders these days, the slight tingling in his fingertips when he touches the edge of a freshly-brewed pot of tea or buries his hand in the snow — but Rangiku insisted that he bundle up regardless. So, with mittens and coat and scarf so thick they make it hard to move, they’ve made it far into the depths of Rukongai.

Sometimes Izuru used to wonder why she picked this spot, of all the spots to pick. Most of the time these days, though, he’s just grateful the place is so far away. Makes it much harder to dwell on old corpses.

“Do you think he would have cared that we ended up like this?” he asks at last. The wind rustles his scarf and tugs at his hair. The sky, which has been threatening precipitation for days, rumbles as the pregnant clouds scrape against one another. In the distance, a wild dog howls, and nearby a rustling bush gives way to a half-frozen rabbit.

Rangiku tilts her head back and forth. Methodically, as though examining a work of art in a museum rather than a headstone. Izuru suspects she thinks the whole thing is as ugly as he thinks it. He wonders if the crudeness of the markings on the limestone surface was intentional. _Probably_. Even if she didn’t intend it consciously.

Several minutes pass before she says anything at all. Finally – “I don’t think it matters. He’s dead, and we’re not. Simple as that.”

Izuru, for once, holds his tongue. Doesn’t try to deny his status as living, doesn’t pull out any melodramatics. Just watches the stone and watches her, and watches snow begin to drift to the ground and accumulate atop the marker, obscuring it entirely.

On the journey back, Izuru’s eyes follow Rangiku’s breath waft skyward, and his own. Strange, to think that whatever heat is contained in a body such as this is enough to produce steam. He takes off his glove and breathes into his palm, Rangiku turning her head to watch him. Is that a prickle of disappointment that he can’t feel the warm air on his fingertips? Surely not.

When he wakes up the next morning, Renji curled tight against his side beneath the layers of blankets for warmth, there’s something there — the faintest tinge of a memory. A dream, forgotten against the stolid sunspot of his tormented synapses. He recalls none of the details, if there ever were any. Just a panorama of light, of brown noise and taste and smell and _heat_. Of every hue and shade in the rainbow.

Just color.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

“I want to be alive again."

Akon doesn’t answer him at all. He’s busy, wrist-deep beneath the flap of skin that covers Izuru’s ribcage. Before, Izuru might have watched the fingers pinch and pluck at his flesh; now, he fixates on the place where Akon’s eyebrows should be, then on the light fixture overhead. By the time he pulls them out, Akon’s latex gloves are covered in blood, his blood, and it doesn’t look like oil anymore on his fingertips as he flicks it off, deep red droplets speckling on his smock. The nerve ending is patched, and Izuru thinks he feels something as the needle passes in and out of his skin.

He tries again. “ _Really_ alive, not just moving and thinking. When… Is that ever going to happen? Will I be alive again?”

“What are you talking about?” The gloves curl at the edges as they come off his hands with a snap and are discarded. Then he stares at Izuru as if he’s grown a second nose that he wants to examine. “You’ve got a pulse, and you’ve got your own reiatsu again, don’t you? You already are."

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Well, it only took three months for me to write this, and several more days to properly revise the whole thing.
> 
> If you liked what you read, please consider dropping some Kudos down there — or better yet, leave a comment! You can also find me at my writing tumblr, with the same handle.


End file.
